Meet David Alvarez and Mike Aguirre, two Latinos running for mayor of San Diego

After Bob Filner resigned from his position as mayor of San Diego, Calif., on August 30 following an onslaught of sexual harassment allegations, 11 candidates qualified for the ballot to run for mayor in the November 19 special election.

Two of those candidates, David Alvarez and Mike Aguirre, are Latinos who have prior experience as elected office holders in the city of 1.3 million people that sits adjacent to Tijuana, Mexico. Currently, 28.3 percent of the city’s population is Latino.

Alvarez and Aguirre have the opportunity to become the first Latino mayor of San Diego since California became a state. Despite former Assembly member Nathan Fletcher’s emergence as a front-runner, the presence of two Latinos among the top four candidates for mayor in the country’s eighth largest city points to the growing influence of the Latino community.